Interviewing in Practice and Theory
Organizers: Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University), Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg) & Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University). This event is part of projects A01 and A02 of the SFB 1187: Media of Cooperation.
Venue: Room 217/18 of Herrengarten 3, 57072 Siegen and online. Starts 11:30 on September 21, ends 17:50 on Sept 22.
Registration and format: There is no charge to take part. On both days, the earlier session is a workshop, which will be run for a small group in an interactive format by Thomas Haigh, an historian of computing and experienced oral history interviewer who has conducted interviews sponsored by the ACM, SIAM, and the Software History Center. To participate in one or both of those workshops, please email thomas.haigh@gmail.com by September 16. In-person participation is preferred, but remote participation is possible and the room has been configured for hybrid events. Participants will be provided with a small packet of preparatory readings to be discussed during the workshops.
The events after lunch will be talks and a roundtable discussion featuring other experts on historical interviewing, most of whom are participating remotely. To receive a videoconferencing link for these, please register with Marcus Rommel by sending an email to marcus.rommel@student.uni-siegen.de.
While the focus of the event is on oral history interviews, many of the techniques and issues apply more broadly to unstructured and semi-structured interviews designed to elicit memories and experiences.
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
11:00 onward – coffee and snacks for in-person participants
11:30 to 14:30: Day 1 Workshop, “Interview Formats and Preparation.” Led by Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University). See above for registration. Key topics include:
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- Introduction to oral history interview methods, including their strengths and weaknesses as historical sources (please read the precirculated documents for discussion)
- Different interview formats, including full-career interviews and focused interviews
- How to approach a potential interview subject
- Work done prior to the interview to make it a success, including the preparation of an outline
- Practical issues, such as recording equipment and in-person vs. online interviewing
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14:30 to 16:00: Lunch break. A chance for in-person participants to chat with Thomas Haigh and with each other to share experiences and identify issues related to their particular projects.
16:00 to 16:50: “Fieldwork Interviews for Internet History – a Case Study.” Miglè Bareikytè (Siegen University).
17:00 to 17:50: “Dealing With Difficult Situations During the Interview.” Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University).
18:00 to 18:50: “Conducting an Oral History Interview.” David Brock (Computer History Museum).
19:30: Dinner for the in-person participants at the restaurant da Luciano.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
10:00 onward: Coffee and snacks for in-person participants.
10:30 to 13:30: Day 2 Workshop, “After the Interview.” Led by Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University). See above for registration. Key topics include:
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- Transcription and editing of interviews
- Options for making interview materials public
- Using interviews in research
- A case study on editing video interview materials into short clips for public history use
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13:30 to 15:00. Lunch break. A chance for in-person participants to chat with Thomas Haigh and with each other to share experiences and identify issues related to their particular projects.
15:00 to 15:50: “Intertwining Distant Reading of Web archives and Oral Histories of the COVID crisis.” Valérie Schafer (C2DH, University of Luxembourg).
16:00 to 16:50: “Self-reflexivity and Other Challenges of Researching Life Narratives.” Milica Popovic (Global Observatory on Academic Freedom, Central European University).
17:00 to 17:50: Concluding roundtable on the challenges of oral history for media technology research. Sebastian Giessmann (moderator, Siegen University), Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg) & Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University).
Readings
An electronic packet containing the following resources will be made available to participants.
Historiography:
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- Portelli, Alessando. “What Makes Oral History Different,” in Robert Perks & Alistair Thomson (eds.) The Oral History Reader (Routledge,1998): 63-74. A classic article originally published in 1979 that helped to legitimate oral history as an historical method, raising some deep questions about the relationship between oral testimony and more traditional kinds of historical source.
- Thomson, Alistair. “Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History.” Oral History Review 34:1 (2006): 49-70. Following on from Potelli’s essay, this gives a clear guide to how thinking about oral history evolved over the next few decades.
- Shopes, Linda. “Making Sense of Oral History.” Oral History in the Digital Age (2012). http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/08/making-sense-of-oral-history/ The third in our historiographical sequence, this one looks at the more recent challenges posed by the Web and the new accessibility of oral histories as part of online public history projects.
Interview Methods:
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- Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Ch. 3 (“Conducting Interviews”) only. As the name suggests, a practical and useful guide focused on what to do during the interview itself.
- Hoddeson, Lillian. “The Conflicts of Memories and Documents: Dilemmas and Pragmatics of Oral History” from The Historiography of Contemporary Science, Technology & Medicine, eds. Ronald E. Doel, Thomas Söderqvist (London: Routledge):187-200. The focus here is on elite interviews — what to do when faced with famous individuals who have been interviewed many times and may have material describing their work already deposited in archives. (This one chosen independently by both Haigh and David Brock).
- Charles T. Morrissey, “The Two-Sentence Format as an Interviewing Technique in Oral History Fieldwork,” Oral History Review 15:1 (1987):43-53. Short and wise guide to phrasing oral history questions in ways that steer the interviewee in unobtrusive ways to maximize the chance of informative answers. (Chosen by David Brock)
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